


coming in first place

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:06:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It comes down to short-term glory or long-term success, and David hopes, no, he <i>knows</i> that hockey writers aren’t going to be fooled by Lourdes’ pretty nights like fans seem to be, that they know that David had the better season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming in first place

**Author's Note:**

> This part is entirely Clo's ~~fault~~ doing. Thank you for the inspiration.

The rest of the season feels like status quo, and that isn’t a good thing, since the Islanders end up sitting miles out of contention. The Panthers are even worse off, but that isn’t much of a comfort when David’s season’s over and half the league’s just getting started. The only bright spot is that he ends up shortlisted for the Calder, along with Lourdes and a token third who probably shouldn’t even bother to show up. Lourdes ends the season with three more points than him. Just three. More goals than David by a fairly long shot, but Lourdes spent his whole season in a series of boom or bust, went ten games straight without a point, and David’s been nothing if not consistent. It comes down to short-term glory or long-term success, and David hopes, no, he _knows_ that hockey writers aren’t going to be fooled by Lourdes’ pretty nights like fans seem to be, that they know that David had the better season.

He considers spending the offseason in New York, because at least here he’s got a lease and could easily wrangle himself some training, but the majority of the players leave within the first week, Kurmazov to Russia and then presumably the World Championships, the rest to home and hopefully improvement, and it’s harder than David would have thought to convince the trainers to take him on. He sticks around for a week, arranges for a cleaning service for while he’s gone, throws out the contents of his fridge, and goes back to Ottawa before the first round series are even properly underway. 

His mom’s at work when he gets in, and it’s not like she can take the afternoon off just to pick him up. He takes a cab in, wonders if it’d be worth it to get a car for the summers, or just brave OC Transpo and the chance of getting recognized. He will, he knows he will, but it’s usually only kids who approach him in public, and he doesn’t mind that so much.

His old room is immaculately clean, like it’s never been touched, and he does his best not to change its appearance, other than putting away the clothing he needs to in his drawers, Islanders gear mixing in with Remparts shirts, worn, soft to the touch. He calls his agent once he’s settled, asks him to look around for some decent training facilities in Ottawa, and whether there’s someone good to be found or called in. 

“Sure, kid,” Dave says. “And there’s some training camp in Toronto if you’re willing to pay for it, gets some big names. Starts in July, I think.”

“Sure,” David says. “Sign me up. And Dave--”

“I know,” Dave interrupts. “The sooner the better. I got you.”

“Thanks,” David says. 

*

David’s at the stove half-heartedly poking at some chicken breasts that won’t char properly when his mom comes in around seven. He can hear her drop her keys in the bowl by the door, the click of her heels until she kicks them off in the hallway, and it’s so familiar, for a moment he feels like a kid, excited that his mom finally came home. 

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, standing in the doorway. “We could just get delivery. You know where the menus are.”

“That’s fine,” David says. “None of those places are particularly healthy.”

“Suit yourself,” she says. “I hope you made enough for two.”

She retreats, and David’s done by the time she comes back down, out of the sensible pantsuit and in jeans and an Islanders shirt she must have bought for the game they played in Ottawa. “Are you staying for the summer?” she asks when David sits beside her on the kitchen island.

“I don’t know,” David says. “If I can find a good trainer.”

“Well, this is your home,” she says, patting him on the hand once before taking hers away, and David keeps his head down, focuses on his food. There’s nothing to really talk about; half of her work is confidential and the other half’s boring, and he’s pretty sure she considers the whole of his work boring, though she asks him a bit about where he’s going to train, mentioning that there’s a Goodlife Fitness nearby, like he just needs to find a Pilates class or something and isn’t a professional athlete.

“I don’t know,” David mumbles. “I might have to go to Toronto, they have a training camp there Dave mentioned.”

“Dave knows best,” she says, spearing a tomato, and they sink back into silence.

“I have to do some more work,” she says, once he’s cleared their plates. “But you can watch TV or something if you keep the volume low, it won’t bother me.”

“I’m just gonna go to my room,” David says, and loads the dishwasher while he listens to her berate someone in French about some Bloc business that’s making the Prime Minister look bad. Her French is flawless, right out of the government funded handbook, and David suddenly misses Quebec City, where everyone would turn their nose up at it.

When he’d come back after his first summer in the Q, his mom had described his accent as ‘hopelessly low-bow’, and when he’d gone back for training he’d asked Poulin to teach him every single bit of slang he knew, which Poulin did gleefully, pulling the rest of the guys into it until there was a team-wide ‘teach all the Anglos Quebecois slang’ initiative, complete with a pawed over list of the worst insults, which the coaches rolled their eyes at but ignored. David’s never used any of it outside the locker room or off the ice, but sometimes he wants to, wants to see if she’d chide him or if she’d even know what he was talking about.

He won’t, of course.

*

Dave does end up finding someone decent for David, or good enough that he won’t be out of shape by July. The trainer’s not a hockey specialist, but he’s willing to do his research and set David on a path that is familiar enough to tread, and he lets David push himself just hard enough to hurt and not hard enough to injure. 

His mom’s not home much, which he’s used to, her long days at the office and trips across the country, across the world. When he was younger she’d bring something back for him every time she left, and he has a shelf in his bedroom of tchotchkes from around the world, pretty but useless. 

He cooks every day to avoid the temptation to eat out, either eats with his mom at the kitchen island, or against the counter, leaving the leftovers in the fridge. Jogs along the Ottawa River every morning, meets with his trainer every afternoon, and his days sink into a regimented simplicity that settles some of the anger still working through him as long as he studiously avoids watching any playoff games, and has him looking forward to the July camp, especially once Dave mentions some of the players signed to his agency who are going to be there, players that David considers to be meaningful opponents.

It also makes him look forward to the NHL Awards, media-desperate farce it will inevitably be, wrapped in Las Vegas spectacle, just to break the monotony. He gets a cheerfully worded email informing him he can have one person up front with him and up to four in rows further back, and that rooms in the hotel above will be provided, and he mentions it over dinner. His mom pulls her phone out. 

“I’ll be in Moscow,” she says, frowning down at her calendar. “Is it really important?”

“No,” David says. “It’s nothing special.”

“Sorry,” she says. “Maybe next year?”

David clenches his jaw to keep from snapping at her that unless she thinks he’s going to be winning the Art Ross or Rocket Richard at twenty, she’s shit out of luck. Just goes for a jog that evening along streets that empty out once the workday’s over, runs until he can’t catch his breath and has to walk home.

His dad would probably come, but he’d also probably spend the whole time handing his card to NHLers and executives, like it’s a business conference--the one time he met David’s agent he tried to charm him into whatever it is he sells--so David screens him the next time he calls, sends an email back to the organizer that additional seats and additional rooms will not be necessary.

*

The Leafs win the Stanley Cup. The city of Ottawa sulks for days, and David tries not to as well, though he probably would have regardless of who it was, considering it wasn’t him. His mom goes to BC and he makes food for one. She goes to Moscow, and he packs for the awards, just a suit bag and an old backpack he hasn’t pulled out since high school, wincing at the Las Vegas weather forecast on his phone while he waits for the transfer in Toronto.

He gets in with enough time for a room service lunch, a shower, time to fiddle with his tie when it won’t lie flat against his chest, to wage an internal debate with himself on whether gelling his hair is the appropriate course of action. He does, but just a little, and when he gets in the elevator he shares it with a Norris trophy nominee and what is presumably his wife, sharing a tight-lipped smile with him, since the last time David met him was on the receiving end of a brutal check that sidelined him for a game. 

There’s an orderly line into the venue, unremarkable except for the fact that some of the greatest players in the league have to line up and wait like everyone else, and David settles into his designated with some time to spare, tries not to look around to see where the other nominees are seated, whether they’re all in the same row, or if they seated the winner closer to make the walk faster, or what. 

There’s an empty seat beside him, once everyone’s settled in, and David wonders if they clumped all the people who can’t even get one person to show up together to keep the seating even. Instead, some gorgeous blonde who’s dressed like she’s at the Oscars and not the NHL Awards sits down beside him and flashes him a quick smile. 

“I don’t think you’re in the right seat,” David says quietly, after she shows no sign of moving. 

She smiles at him again, all teeth. “I was asked to sit here, I hope you don’t mind.”

“What,” David asks, “the NHL provides fake girlfriends for the guys who can’t get their own?”

She smiles at him like it’s her job now, tight-lipped. “I’m just a seat filler,” she says. “You’re a little young for me.”

David thinks protesting that he wasn’t hitting on her would be pointless. She probably gets hit on all the time. Instead he looks around, wonders who else dotted in the crowd isn’t even involved in this. There are a lot of stylish, beautiful women in the crowd, but that doesn’t really mean much. He’s seen his teammates’ wives and girlfriends, and pretty much without exception, they’re all out of their league. 

The lights dim, then, and they go through a couple musical performances that David fidgets through, since it’s not the time or the place for live music, occasionally pressing his hand against his right pocket to make sure the speech he wrote on the plane is still there, as if it may have disappeared between the songs and the presentation of the Masterson. 

When they announce the Calder, along with short videos of play, David’s checked his pocket so many times the seat filler must think he has a nervous twitch, and he can tell he’s sweating. The confidence he’s had since nomination has disappeared, and all he feels is scared.

They announce Jake Lourdes.

David doesn’t hear Lourdes’ speech. He doesn’t hear, or see, much of anything once Lourdes stands. Lourdes has a pretty girl beside him that stands with him, and he has to tilt his head down so she can kiss him on the cheek, probably leaving a smear of gloss against his skin. Lourdes heads up the stairs, and David looks down at his hands in his lap, and notices, dimly, that they’re shaking.

He can’t get them to stop.

*

David doesn’t want to go to the reception after, but he knows it’d be unprofessional not to, that the same writers who deemed him unworthy of the Calder would call him a crybaby or a sore loser, that there are executives he needs to shake hands with, that Dave would scream at him if he knew David was considering just going up to his hotel room and ordering--he doesn’t even know what, a piece of cake. An entire cake. Or maybe just heading to the airport and seeing if there are any red-eyes out.

He doesn’t want to, but he does, because it’s part of his job, gets himself orange juice and soda water from a bartender who smiles without recognition, leaves her a crumpled tip in the jar. He doesn’t know where Lourdes is in the crowd, and he wants to, if only so he can away from him, because if he has to face him, he thinks the thin veneer of professionalism he’s plastered over himself will crack, that he’ll punch him in his smug face in front of the media and assorted important people. 

No matter how much he’s trying to avoid Lourdes, it’s impossible to when he can’t even locate him right up until Lourdes comes over to him, a beer in hand even though he’s only nineteen and in a room full of people he’s supposed to impress. He probably figures his Calder was enough that he gets a pass on underage drinking. David hopes, vicious, that someone takes a picture, but even then, people probably wouldn’t care. From what he can tell, Jake Lourdes gets a lifetime pass for everything, since no one gives a shit if he’s streaky, or slewfoots someone, or instigates a fight, or drinks. He’s America’s sweetheart either way. Meanwhile David high-sticks someone accidentally and gets called ‘out of control’.

“Hey,” Lourdes says, and when David just stares back at him. “I--you were really good this season.”

David’s pretty sure he’s supposed to say ‘you too’, but he doesn’t want to, because maybe Lourdes did, but he didn’t have a better season than David, and he got the award anyway. There’s nothing in him that wants to cater to Lourdes’ ego any more than it has already been catered to, David’s sure he’s had more than enough back-slaps and congratulations to swell his head for the rest of his life.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating your victory with the piece of ass you came with?” David asks instead.

Lourdes looks angry, and David realises that’s the first time he’s seen him look like that off the ice. “That’s my fucking sister,” he snaps, “so yeah, I probably should, instead of talking an asshole who just called her a piece of ass.”

David winces. “Sorry,” he says, knee-jerk, even if he doesn’t really want to. He’s well aware that sisters are pretty much considered sacrosanct in the locker room. Probably outside of it too. 

The anger’s off Lourdes’ face almost as soon as it’s arrived. “There isn’t anyone--” he starts, then chews his lip. “I don’t have a girlfriend or anything.” He cuts his eyes to the side, voice getting quieter. “Or boyfriend.”

“Okay,” David says. “Good for you.”

“Chaps--” Lourdes says.

“Don’t call me that,” David snaps, and when someone glances over, drops his eyes. “Look, you won, congratulations. Your family probably wants to celebrate with you.”

“Where’s yours?” Lourdes asks. “I didn’t see you with anyone.”

“That’s none of your fucking business,” David says, and Lourdes looks hurt, which is what he gets for prying into David’s life like it’s his right.

“David,” Lourdes says, reaching out, his hand brushing David’s sleeve, and David jerks his hand back, orange juice splashing his hand. He feels his eyes fill, and that’s worse, even, than to lose control and punch Lourdes in the face. When he was a kid he cried after every loss until his teammates all called him Crybaby Chapman, and all that meant is he had more incentive to win, but this is a stupid contest he has no control over, and of course Lourdes won it. Everyone fucking loves him, and even David’s stupid enough to get pulled in whenever he’s around.

“I have to go,” David says, turns heel and walks out like a coward, dropping the glass on some unused table on his way out. He makes it as far as the elevator bay, stabs the up button and presses the heel of his hands into his eyes, trying to get his breathing back to even, when he hears rapid footfall behind him and knows it’s Lourdes, because he never leaves anything _alone_.

“It’s bullshit, okay?” Lourdes says. “Everyone knows you did better than me, you barely went a game without a point. It’s a bullshit award.”

“And yet you’re the one who won it,” David says, not taking his hands off his eyes, so he startles, hard, when Lourdes grabs him by the arm.

“I would have voted for you,” Lourdes says. “And so would most of the guys in the league. They’re just reporters, David, they don’t know shit.”

David hears the elevator doors open and lowers his hands, hopes his eyes aren’t red. He pulls his arm free from Lourdes’ loose grip. “Enjoy your party,” he says, and steps in. 

Lourdes gets in right beside him. “Which floor?” he asks.

David stares at him until the doors shut. 

“Okay,” Lourdes says. “I’m on the twelfth.” He presses the button.

“What the fuck are you doing?” David asks, anger beat out, just for a moment, by genuine curiosity.

Lourdes shrugs. “Hanging out with you,” he says.

“You just won the _Calder_ ,” David says. “Your _family_ is here.”

“They’ll be here tomorrow,” Lourdes says. 

The doors open on twelve, and Lourdes steps out. “Coming?” he asks.

David does, but only because his room’s on the same floor. Which doesn’t explain why he follows Lourdes to his room. He doesn’t want the explanation for that.

Lourdes opens the door, not even bothering flipping the lights on once it shuts behind David, before he’s turning, leaning down to press his mouth against David’s, only pulling back when David turns his face away, and then only to drop to his knees.

“Don’t,” David says, once Lourdes’ hands are on his belt, and Lourdes stops, looking up at him, face half lit by the bright lights outside the window. The Calder Memorial Trophy winner’s on his knees in front of David just a few hours after he won, and that’s not enough. David never gets first place, and the reason’s kneeling in front of him. 

“I want to fuck you,” David says, the words coming out rough, and he expects Lourdes to startle, to pull back, to prove himself for the coward David knows he is, but Lourdes just blinks twice, lashes shadows against his cheekbones.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” David repeats, blankly.

Lourdes stands, making his way over to turn on a bedside lamp before he starts going through a bag at the foot of his bed. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I--aha!”

He flourishes a small bottle of what looks like hand sanitizer but David assumes is lube, a strip of condoms. Prepared, of course. Maybe David should have expected that. David’s first kiss may have been Lourdes, but Benson probably wasn’t calling him ‘Ladykiller Lourdes’ for no reason. He brought his sister to the Awards, but David doubts someone like the seat filler beside him would say that _Lourdes_ was too young for her, especially with a trophy bearing his name.

David immediately has second thoughts. It was one thing to blow Lourdes not knowing what he was doing, but the full extent of his experience with anal sex is porn and a few guides, all carefully scrubbed from his browser history. Lourdes has condoms and lube on hand to a night he’s supposed to spend with his _family_ , and was pretty obviously used to a cock in his mouth by the time he swallowed David’s. The last thing David needs is to throw Lourdes more ammunition.

Lourdes’ smile fades. “We don’t have to,” he says, like he’s placating David. “We could just hang, get room service, watch a movie or something.”

“No,” David snaps. He’s not a fucking coward. He won’t let himself be. “Just--just get on the bed.”

“‘kay,” Lourdes says, shrugs his jacket off so it hits the floor, like it doesn’t even matter. Tugs his tie free so he can start unbuttoning his shirt, and David gets caught watching him, the slow reveal of his throat, his collarbones, before he looks away and sheds his jacket, laying it on the bureau, taking off the cufflinks he’d always considered lucky, putting them in his right pocket, alongside his useless speech, though maybe he should just throw them out. Or give them to Lourdes, because every time David’s worn them, Lourdes has beaten him out, left him with second place.

By the time David’s down to his briefs, Lourdes is the same, looking indecisive. “C’mere?” he says, and David walks over, doesn’t flinch when Lourdes puts a hand on his jaw, pulls him in for a kiss, though he pulls back before Lourdes can deepen it. 

“David,” Lourdes says, lips almost brushing David’s, and David wants to tell him he can’t call him that either, but it emphatically does not feel like the time.

“Lie down,” David says, instead, and Lourdes does, shifting his hips up to slide his underwear off, cock half-hard, plumped up against his belly. David stares for a second until Lourdes shifts, and when David meets his eyes, Lourdes’ cheeks are flushed.

“Can you just--” Lourdes says, and David kneels on the bed, curving one hand over Lourdes’ knee, incongruously skinny when he’s muscle everywhere else, broader than David, who can’t put more weight on no matter how hard he tries, reaching out for the small bottle, which is indeed lube, and slicking his fingers.

“Turn on your stomach,” David says, quiet, and Lourdes does, grabbing a pillow and sliding it under his hips, which David wouldn’t have thought of.

The lube’s cool, though David doesn’t really understand the consequences of that until Lourdes is sucking a quick, uncomfortable breath in when David presses his middle finger against him then says, quick and apologetic, “cold,” when David stills, afraid he’s already done something wrong, something telling.

“Sorry,” David says, wonders very seriously for a moment what the hell kind of person Lourdes is that he takes something that’s rightfully David’s, and he has _David_ apologizing all through the night. 

“S’cool,” Lourdes says, takes another breath in, shakier, when David presses his finger in. Despite the lube slicking his fingers, Lourdes is tight, almost painfully so, enough that David wonders how he’s actually supposed to get his _dick_ in. He goes slow by necessity, Lourdes relaxing incrementally around him, until he says, “You can use another,” and David does, unable to stop looking at the clench of his hole, the muscles of his ass, the long line of his back, unbroken by anything other than freckles and a few moles, his head pillowed on his arms, mostly hidden by the fall of his hair.

Even with his face obscured, he’s responsive, hips shifting up against David’s fingers, at first incremental and then more when David’s three fingers deep, his breath hitching into a caught moan when David presumably hits his prostate, judging by the repeat performance once he targets the spot. His muscles are tense, coiled, but he stays open around David’s fingers, practically greedy, and maybe this wasn’t supposed to be punishment, exactly, David isn’t a _monster_ , but it bothers him, the way Lourdes takes it, as easy as David is with him, though in Lourdes’ case, he’s probably that easy for everyone. David’s just easy for him, and he hates that about himself.

“Fuck me,” Lourdes says, muffled into his arm, and when David stills, more distinct. “David, _fuck_ me.”

David pulls his fingers out, fumbling for a condom, wrinkling his nose when he has to wipe his fingers off on the comforter before he can manage to get it open, fumbling with the lube’s flip top like it’s rocket science. It doesn’t help that he can’t stop looking at where Lourdes is open, and slick, where he’d been tight around David’s fingers and will be tighter around his cock.

“Da _vid_ ,” Lourdes says, impatient sounding, and David slicks himself, looks out at the wide open Las Vegas night just so he isn’t looking at Lourdes.

“Get up on your knees,” David says, voice miraculously steady, even if his hands aren’t. Lourdes does, and it’s easy, it’s so easy to wrap a hand around himself, guide himself into the tight clutch of Lourdes’ body, which takes him in like he’s meant there.

“Just--slow,” Lourdes says, voice as shaky as David’s wasn’t, and there isn’t really another option, Lourdes so tight around him David feels like he’s in a vise grip, though he’d never associated the thought with the positive before. David’s slow until he isn’t, until he can’t be, a hand on Lourdes’ hip, another on his cock, half-hard until David gets his hand around it, which gets Lourdes’ breath back to a panting, uneven pull, gets Lourdes tightening around him every time David rubs his thumb against the tip of his cock.

David will be damned if he gets off before Lourdes does, his lip between his teeth just to have the sting hold him back. Would sink his teeth into Lourdes, wants to, but it’d probably backfire, he’d get off balls deep in him, mouth against his shoulderblade. 

“Please,” Lourdes says, under his breath, repeated, like he doesn’t even know he’s saying it, and nothing would make David happier than having Lourdes beg and doing the opposite, but he can’t stop, riding the edge and trying to take Lourdes with him. It’s a near thing, but Lourdes does come first, spilling hot into David’s hand, and David can’t help jerking into him, once, twice, before he comes buried in the clutch of his body.

Lourdes sinks down to his elbows, and David’s pulled with him while he catches his breath, until he pulls out, tugging the condom off. He ties it, grabbing the empty wrapper and finding a garbage, washing his hands, and comes back to Lourdes still on his stomach, blinking at him with half-lidded eyes. 

“C’mere,” Lourdes says, when David starts to look for his underwear.

“I have to go,” David says, finds his briefs near the foot of the bed, tugging them on.

“You don’t,” Lourdes says, frowning and sitting up. “I mean unless you’re going back to the reception. I can come, then.”

“No,” David says, flatly, finds his pants closer to the door. “I’m not going to the reception.”

“Then will you just come here?” Lourdes asks.

David finds his shirt, curses himself for not wearing an undershirt, debating whether the risk of walking down the hall with an open shirt is acceptable. Probably not. He starts buttoning from the top.

“David,” Lourdes says.

“Stop calling me that,” David snaps.

Lourdes is silent for a moment. “It’s your name,” he says, finally.

“And I never gave you the fucking right to call me it,” David says. 

Lourdes is quiet again, and David just has time to think, hopeful, that he’s decided to shut the fuck up and let David leave, before he speaks. “I know things are--weird, I guess, right now. But we’re friends, right? Or not friends, maybe--”

“I don’t know what planet you live on,” David says, “Whether the fact that everybody fucking loves you got to your head or something, but we’re not _friends_. I can’t stand you.”

He finishes buttoning his shirt, finally, grabs his suit jacket and looks back at Lourdes, who pulled his underwear on at some point, and is looking at him, stricken.

“Enjoy the award you don’t deserve,” David says, and if Lourdes has a reply, David doesn’t wait around to hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thinking process during titling:
> 
>  **logical part of self:** ...don't do the pun, _DON'T DO THE PUN_.
> 
>  **punny part of self:** I AM DOING THE PUN.
> 
>  ~~not~~ sorry for the pun. 
> 
> As always, my tumblr is [here](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com)


End file.
